Skip to main content
Close

Wrath of the Titans: Good Where It Counts

By Pam Glazier · April 2, 2012

This week The Wrath of the Titans hit theaters. I made a day of it with a couple of friends because I feel that it is always best to do big action movies in a group. I find that it heightens the fun, even if the movie turns out to be a stinker. Of course this is not always the case (::cough, cough:: Michael Mann’s Miami Vice ::cough::), but thankfully my bestie Ginger was able to make this excursion to the latest Titans movie enjoyable. My good friend Reid was also along for this movie outing, but he didn’t enjoy the film as much. I feel that this is because he is not quite up to the master-level of corny-action-cinema connoisseurship that Ginger and I have attained. Also, there was an extreme dearth of boobage in this film, so that could have been a contributing factor…just sayin’…dudes like boobs.

Anyway, the film opens with Perseus (Sam Worthington). Despite the fact that his wife died, he is happy as a single dad, raising his son Helius (John Bell) in a remote fishing village. But one day, Zeus (Liam Neeson) appears to him and explains that the gods are weakening and he needs Perseus’ help but Perseus refuses. He doesn’t want a life of battle and glory. He wants the simple life he has made for himself and his son. But of course, things go wrong for Zeus, and Perseus has a dream-vision of a future hell on earth. It becomes clear that he must take action, if only to protect the simple life he has come to prize so dearly—for he is the only one who can.

Now, prior to watching the movie Ginger had lamented the hair choice for this film, suggesting that the fro took away from Worthington’s sexiness. Lamentably, now that I’ve seen the film in its entirety, I would have to say that I agree with her. The hair choice was just awkward and funky for this film—kind of like when Clooney adopted that whole terrifying Caesar haircut fad in the 90s (still shuddering). And Reid felt the same way, suggesting that Worthington should have simply committed to the full mullet. Balls out, you know? I believe I recall him asking “What is this half-way bullshit?”

But despite the distracting hair and the no-boobs, this movie was surprisingly good. You see, I have come to expect that I will have to lower my expectations when it comes to action/adventure movies for Hollywood has broken my heart one too many times in this genre (yes, I’m talking to you Predator 2, The Immortals, The Fantastic “flame on” Four, etc.). Hell, even the first film of this franchise, The Clash of the Titans, infuriated me for irreparably deviating from the super excellent original film it was based on. But this one was not so bad. The story made sense, the characters were grave when they were supposed to be grave, fun and light when they were supposed to be fun and light, intense when they were…well, you get the idea. The point is that the actors and filmmakers made the script work. There weren’t a bunch of unintentional hilarities. I only counted two major ones, which is impressive for such a large and swaggering man-movie. And the action wasn’t over the top either. I mean, it WAS over the top, but only so much as one would expect from this kind of movie. It wasn’t distractingly beyond the top. And it dovetailed well with more quiet character or travel scenes so that the audience was allowed to learn and thus give a shit about the characters that were being established. So kudos for that.

An especially cool scene that illustrates this is when Perseus decides he must go, and so calls Pegasus to his fishing village. He then rides Pegasus all the way to the front lines of an army that is the first defense against the creatures that are escaping from the underworld. During this Pegasus ride, we get gorgeous aerial views of ancient Greece as Perseus flies over, but we also get a context for what’s been going on because the country side is marred by gaping, sulfurous sink holes and cities burned and ravaged by fire and demon attack. It was a great multitask. Wow the eye, inform the mind.

But despite the decent narrative arc, Reid wanted me to let you know that the movie was annoying because there were no decent fight scenes in it. You expect a decently choreographed fight scene in a movie, and this was pretty bland on that scale. I’d have to agree with him. Nothing stands out as visually arresting in the action sequences. Even the final two showdowns were pretty “bleh.” And that just doesn’t cut the mustard when you’re dealing with an epic action movie.

But let’s get back to the two aforementioned unintentional hilarity gaffes that I spotted in this movie.

During the whole of this film the god Ares (Edgar Ramirez) has been angry and jealous of Perseus and Zeus. Some might argue that it would make sense that he be all angry and fightery because he is the god of war. But there was no volume control on this particular character. It was if the director had turned poor Edgar Ramirez up to 11 and then left him there. Whenever he’s on screen, all he does is beat the living crap out of people with a massive stink-face on. There’s no nuance in that. This was fine until (SPOILERS) the final confrontation between him and Perseus. It seems that Ares has brought Perseus’ son to witness this particular beatdown because he wants Helius to know what it feels like to have his father taken away from him, which is what he thinks Perseus did to him. Again, this is a completely logical plot arc, and would make for some decent drama. But that decent drama just doesn’t happen when the emotional reveal is delivered in the same egregious and overplayed hatred that has been a constant for that character. There’s no depth and it just starts to feel like poor Edgar Ramirez is some sort of unfeeling cyborg on “hate-mode.” Or even worse, an extreme drama queen. Ginge and I were laughing at this end tantrum when we should have been feeling the danger of the situation and the sadness of a breach between brothers. The performance made me think of Keanu Reeve’s perma-freeze stink-face in Much Ado About Nothing. Ginger felt the performance was more like the scream-whines of the villain Legion (Wes Bentley) from the original Ghost Rider. As you might imagine, this scene was less than captivating.

And the final showdown against Kronos (the giant lava-monster-titan) felt more like a GCI-happy “jack and the beanstalk” moment than an actual showdown. Perseus literally goes to Hell and back to get Zeus’ thunderbolt, Poseidon’s trident, and Hades’ pitchfork so that he can assemble these three weapons into the Triumvirate—apparently it’s the ultimate weapon, but it just looks like a gleaming metal javelin. Perseus then flies on Pegasus to attack the massive Kronos with this supposed weapon of bad-assery. But then, and this really really surprised me, he flies into the lava monster’s mouth and lodges the Triumvirate deep into Kronos’ esophagus. Ginger leaned over at this exact moment and said with a deep and prophetic voice, “THE TOOTHPICK OF DOOOOOOOOM!” And we snickered together about that for at least five minutes.

But again, only two goofy moments out of a whole movie is pretty good. I would recommend it. The actors make it interesting, and the story makes sense. Also, Bill Nighy makes everything better, even if (as is the case of this film with his small role playing the god Hephaestus) he doesn’t get a whole lot of screen time. And the creature effects of this movie were better that the first, which I interpret as a respectful nod to the Ray Harryhausen effects of the original 1970s Clash of the Titans. So despite Worthington’s weird hair, despite the lack of cool fight choreography, despite the lack of hot chicks, and despite a couple of corny moments, I recommend this film. See it for the story, the creatures, and the actors. It ain’t great, but it’s decent. Definitely worth 8 to 12 bucks if you’re a fan of the genre.